Nec Corporation

Casio Computer Co., Ltd.

Hideyuki Shoji

Kazunori Kita

Yoshiyuki Murata

Ken Sasaki

Toshiharu Aihara

Tomoo Kasuo

Narutoshi Minami

Katsuaki Karasawa

Keisuke Tonomura

Takakazu Kusuki

Kazufumi Usui

Syunichi Matsumoto

There is provided an apparatus for carrying out dry etching, including (a) an etching chamber, (b) a pair of electrodes disposed in the etching chamber in facing relation, an object to be etched being placed on one of the electrodes, (c) a plate mounted on the other of the electrodes, the plate being formed with a plurality through-holes, and (d) a pair of enclosures each mounted on each of the electrodes and extending towards the opponent to define a spatial space therebetween in which plasma is generated by introducing a reactive gas thereinto through the through-holes. The enclosures are designed to have a gap therebetween. Both the plate and the enclosures are made of material other than aluminum. The reactive gas is composed only of CF.sub.4. Since nothing other than the object is exposed to plasma, it is possible to prevent generation of particles.

Apparatus and method for dry etching

A method for dry-etching a silicon substrate by the use of a mask selectively formed on the silicon substrate, in which method a reaction product of dry etching is deposited, during dry etching, in a uniform thickness on the side wall of each groove formed in the silicon substrate by dry etching. In the inventive method, etching is conducted by using, as an etching gas, a mixed gas containing Cl.sub.2, HBr, O.sub.2 and He or a mixed gas contained Cl.sub.2, HBr and CO, under the conditions of an etching pressure of 0.02-0.05 Torr, a RF power density of 1.01-1.64 W/cm.sup.2 and a substrate temperature of 40-50.degree. C. With this method, the tapered sectional shape of each groove formed in the silicon substrate can be controlled easily and etching can be conducted at high reproducibility.

Method for dry-etching of silicon substrate

A method of fabricating a semiconductor device includes the steps of forming an inter-layer insulating film, forming a contact hole in the inter-layer insulating film, forming a thin conductive film filling the contact hole and covering the inter-layer insulating film, and forming a contact plug filling the contact hole by etching the thin conductive film and thus exposing the surface of the inter-layer insulating film. The etching is conducted such that, from the time when a surface of the inter-layer insulating film is about to be exposed, the thin conductive film and the inter-layer insulating film are etched under substantially the same etching speed. Plug loss in the contact hole is suppressed so that wiring breakage in the contact hole can be prevented.

Method of fabricating semiconductor device having step of forming plug

A refractory metal layer on a silicon oxide layer is exposed to gaseous etchant containing SF.sub.6, Cl.sub.2 and CO so as to be patterned; F radical and Cl radical effectively etch the refractory metal, and a reaction product of CO gas does not allow the dry etching to sidewardly proceed so that the dry etching achieves good anisotropy, a large etching rate and a large selectivity to silicon oxide.

Method of dry etching for patterning refractory metal layer improved in

A method is for dry etching metal films having a high melting point, such as tungsten (W) films. A SiO.sub.2 film is grown on a silicon substrate after which a W film is deposited using sputtering technology. Then, a photoresist film is deposited and is patterned by optical lithography. A semiconductor substrate thus formed is placed in a dry etching system of a narrow gap type with an anode coupled configuration and is etched using a gas mixture composed of SF.sub.6, Cl.sub.2 and O.sub.2 under conditions such that the flow rate ratio of the gases SF.sub.6 /Cl.sub.2 /O.sub.2 are 20.0:0.5.about.1.5:3.about.7. With this, it is possible to achieve excellent selective etching of the W film with respect to the SiO.sub.2 film that is used as an underlying film.

Method for dry etching metal films having high melting points

An apparatus designed to automatically measure the total moving time, split times, time lag, and the like of each of a plurality of moving objects, and determine the arriving order of each moving object. Every time a plurality of moving objects, e.g., runners or vehicles, pass through each predetermined point, pieces of information such as total running/moving times, split times, time lags, and arriving orders are transmitted, in units of moving objects, to the respective moving objects or a transmission/reception unit arranged at each predetermined point. When moving objects pass through a predetermined point, and their moving times exceed passage times set in units of moving objects, an excess time is informed to each moving object.

Time measurement apparatus and system having reception or transmission

An electronic key apparatus wherein an encrypted code for unlocking an electronic lock is stored in an encrypted code storage register. A password is stored in a password storage register. The same password as that stored in the password storage register, is input via a switch. The password input by the switch is compared with the password stored in the password storage register, by a coincidence detection circuit. When a coincidence is detected, the encrypted code stored in the encrypted code storage register is transmitted to the electronic lock, by a transmitter.

Electronic key apparatus

In a recording/reproducing apparatus, voice message information is encoded into voice message data by an encoder, and keyed in data information is converted into synthesizing speech data by a speech synthesizing circuit. Both the voice message data and the synthesized speech data are separately stored in a semiconductor memory. The speech data is independently read out from the semiconductor memory.

Recording/reproducing apparatus including synthesized voice converter

An output voltage of a solar cell is supplied to a voltage converter. The voltage converter converts the input voltage into a predetermined voltage, and supplies it to a capacitor. The capacitor is charged by the output current of the voltage converter. The capacitor has a relatively large capacitance. A second voltage converter converts an input voltage from the capacitor into a voltage which is lower than the charged voltage of the capacitor and higher than a minimum operating voltage of a load. The load performs a predetermined operation using the output voltage of the second voltage converter.

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Tokyo, Japan

Hideyuki Shoji